Nitt Picks

by BSD on May 2, 2008 10:51 AM EDT in News

Interesting read in the Daily Collegian about a little known 75-hour rule all Penn State sports teams must abide by. The 75 hour rule states that no athletic team or student athlete can be absent from class for more than 75 hours per semester. From what I gather in the article, this is not an NCAA mandate, but rather a restriction Penn State places on itself. Many within the Penn State athletic department feel it puts our teams at an unfair disadvantage compared to other schools.

Every Big Ten school, except Michigan, has some form of the rule; it's just the time that varies. And Penn State's policy is among the strictest.

"Within the committee, the 75-hour rule is definitely a policy that gets more review than others," Kretchmar said.

These reviews are most often brought up in the senate committee every three years by coaches who plead their case in the hopes that the committee will increase the number of hours teams can be away from campus.

"I respect the decision to monitor our class hours, but it is difficult because there isn't a lot of flexibility," track and field coach Beth Alford-Sullivan said.

A policy within the 75-hour rule that Alford-Sullivan calls a "nightmare" is a team's hours getting docked if it decides to leave for competition during its normal practice hours.

Normal practice hours don't count toward the 75-hour rule.

Because of this, many teams are forced to leave on late-night bus rides after practice.

For the Penn State softball team, it is lucky if during these bus trips it gets to the hotel earlier than 11 p.m.

"I never tell my team that we are at a competitive disadvantage, but we are," softball coach Robin Petrini said. "After a while, the players and coaches become so exhausted by the travel that it really takes a physical toll on everyone and affects performance."

Petrini, who was a coach at Northwestern for eight years, said that the Wildcats' softball team never had to deal with as many problems of hours and days away from campus like Penn State does.

This type of problem never occurs at Northwestern, which does not count Big Ten competition when calculating the number of hours and days its teams are away.

"The policy here is far more crippling than at Northwestern," Petrini said.

"There we could get on the dirt, have a good meal and get a good night's sleep."

Now, for Petrini and the rest of the Penn State softball team, sit-down dinners have been replaced with airport and roadside meals at Qboda, Panda Express and McDonald's.

Now before anyone says this is why we're killing outselves in football, read the article and don't.

Sports like football, basketball and volleyball, which charter flights, do not have to worry as much about coming close to the 75-hour limit.

"Football will never get caught because of their schedule," Kretchmar said. "They have one of the lowest, maybe the lowest, missed time amounts we have.

"Even if they didn't charter they would still be low because of their relatively short season, so they are easy to deal with."

Bring On Coastal Carolina

There is No Name On My Jersey is already hitting the offseason wall as he has a preview of Coastal Carolina 120 days out from the contest. If you're dying for some real football analysis, go read it. In typical Homer-JB fashion he picks Penn State to win by 40 points. I think if Penn State fielded a team of 18 inch JoePa's he would still pick Penn State to win by three touchdowns. 18 inch Poz's would win by 100.

Pete Lisicky Scores!

David Jones confirms what most of us already knew. It's good to be Pete Lisicky.

I e-mailed the notoriously single Lisicky a few months ago just to see what female conquests he's made recently, as a half-joke asking for a detailed description of a chance encounter with some Italian Sophia Loren type (OK, I'm dating myself). I got back a two-screen reply that read like something out of Michael Corleone's journal from Sicily. I don't know for certain but it was too real-sounding to be fabricated. It wasn't exactly graphic. Just otherworldly. And that's where these guys are -- in another world. All I can say is, what a fantastic life for a 32-year-old.

And I thought playing basketball in Europe was a bad thing.

Dammit, Don't Call Me After 10

When Joe says don't call me after 10, he means in the morning. I was reading Sean Fitz's interview with Malcom Willis, the Maryland safety that committed to the Lions earlier this week, where Willis said he called Joe right after school to give him the good news. Here was Joe's response. (Note: Content from a premium article reproduced with consent from Blue-White Illustrated)

BWI: How did (Joe Paterno) react to your commitment?

MW: He seemed really excited, because at first he was sleeping, or just waking up or something, and after he was in full gear, he came to life. He was screaming on the phone, and he just seemed really excited.

Make your own jokes.

Etcetera

Fox ranks the top 25 college football uniforms. Penn State comes in at #9.

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Comments

I'd Love.........

to see us put the numbers on the helmets. I think it looks classic.

Eric Watters Atlanta, Ga.

by ech2os on May 2, 2008 11:21 AM EDT 0 recs

Uniforms

I would like to see them change it up once a year. I'm not talking Oregon crazy, but just some kind of subtle change. Come out in blue pants. Or powder blue unis. Or maybe (gulp!) a stripe down the pant leg? There would be a huge gasp from the western stands, but I think the rest of fans would really embrace it as long as it wasn't overdone.

Mike
Black Shoe Diaries

Hail to the Lion!

by BSD on May 2, 2008 11:25 AM EDT 0 recs

Nah...

keep the unis as they are, they are fine and there really is not a reason to go changing them...It is what makes PSU what it is...there really is not a classier look in football than the PSU home uni....Crisp, bright, and straight foward...kinda sounds like a good Paterno offense...

by carolinaeasy on May 2, 2008 12:17 PM EDT up 0 recs

Have to agree

Number on the helmet (one side) would be pretty nice keep it classy. The Stripe down the leg also works for me.

Personally I've always thought that the PSU uni is just classic and not as wacky and out there as some others (i.e. the Nike test school Oregon. I know its Phil Knights alma but still). I think we got the short end of the stick as far as Unis. We should be top five.

My top 5 in no order: PSU, OSU, USC, Army and Bama.

Chris

by cmdpsu15 on May 2, 2008 12:21 PM EDT up 0 recs

NO CHANGE

The fact that we haven't changed is what makes them great, I pick the following top 4: 1)syracuse- the orange does kick ass 2)PSU 3) alabama 4) ND. All the others are too similar, I really don't like all the crap tOSU puts on their helmets.
What is a Chanticleer ? Some sort of chicken!? If you are going to name your team after a chicken or duck or turtle I think you would be better off just skipping the nickname all together. And yes a team of tiny maurice evans would still force 19 fumbles and run 7 back (without shoe) for touchdowns against a bunch of chickens.

by PSU86 on May 2, 2008 12:59 PM EDT up 0 recs

What is a Chanticleer?

You need to brush up on your Chaucer.

by PSU Nick on May 2, 2008 3:15 PM EDT up 0 recs

Mascots

While you're busting on team mascots, why is Notre Dame the Fighting Irish? Last time I checked, Notre Dame cathedral is in France. For this reason, a PSU alum friend of mine likes to call ND "The Fightin' Frenchies".

There's nothing like seeing a pure white PSU uniform covered in mud, grass stains, and the other team's blood and helmet paint!

by NJ lion on May 2, 2008 3:21 PM EDT up 0 recs

fighting irish

They were gonna call them the drunken Irish, but figured since whenever they get drunk they get into fights with each other so fighting Irish it is(but they are drunk too).

by PSU86 on May 2, 2008 8:00 PM EDT up 0 recs

Fightin' Irish

You are an idiot.

by PSU1986 on May 5, 2008 1:39 PM EDT up 0 recs

But imagine this:

A team of 12" high Pozlusznys player-coached by a pithy 10" high Paterno at QB! PSU would have a devastatingly effective power running game. The defense, well, it would blitz every Poz on every down! Unstoppable? Maybe. Wonderful? Always!

GO STATE!

by GLORYOFOLDSTATE on May 2, 2008 11:36 AM EDT 0 recs

18 inch JoePas

That reminds of the Da Bears skit. Bus a Bears!

I was reading through the comments on that uniform list and I can't believe how many people think Florida State has great unis. To each his own I guess. Off the top of my head, my top 10....

Penn State (you know, I'm really objective on this)
Notre Dame
Michigan
Nebraska
Auburn
USC
Wisconsin
Florida
Washington
Alabama

The uniforms are one of many reasons while I like college football so much more than the NFL. I could probably list 30 college teams whose uniforms I like better than the best NFL team.

Get up State.

by speedomike02 on May 2, 2008 11:49 AM EDT 0 recs

BSD meets UniWatch

Can't beat that on a Friday afternoon.

I could live with the 70's throwback once a season, especially if they could get a Big Ten team (or even whichever "traditional eastern rival" we're playing that year) to go along with it, Michigan State being an obvious candidate. In return I would demand that all of the blue trim be immediately removed from the white uniforms, and that the white trim on home blues be toned down significantly.

Army's uniforms are the most underrated, they wear their individual corps patches on the jersey, and the patches are all different, which is super cool.

Michigan's are the most overrated. That helmet design is not original, it is stolen from Princeton. Their colors are lame, calling yellow "maize" is just gauche.

For the Glory National Champions 1982, 1986, 1994,

by jesse. on May 2, 2008 12:08 PM EDT 0 recs

Michigan helmets

It's not exactly "stolen" from Princeton. The coach brought the helmet look with him from Princeton to Michigan.

Get up State.

by speedomike02 on May 2, 2008 1:46 PM EDT up 0 recs

Stolen

I didn't exactly steal clients from my last employer, I just brought them with me when I left.

They are not original, it's something they copied off of somebody else. And stupid looking too, seriously.

For the Glory National Champions 1982, 1986, 1994,

by jesse. on May 2, 2008 1:54 PM EDT up 0 recs

LOL

I agree... stolen AND stupid looking. God, we really have to beat these guys this year.

by BSM PSU 93 on May 2, 2008 3:59 PM EDT up 0 recs

Pink Uniforms

If we really wanted to cause a stir we could revert back to our orginal colors of Pink and Black. Now that is something worth seeing.

I do agree it would be nice to have the numbers back on the helmets. Our only Heisman came with the numbers on the side...might bring back some magic.

The 75 hour rule needs to be tweaked a bit. Even allowing some of the teams to charter jets instead of busing everywhere might help with recruiting/wins/GPAs. It is not easy sitting on 12 hour bus rides getting back to campus at 6am and having to make it to an 8am class. The fact that Penn State has to travel the a little bit further then most of the central Big 10 schools also plays a huge part.

PSU Softball

by QBsneak12 on May 2, 2008 12:18 PM EDT 0 recs

Heaven forbid

They ever name a hurricane: Paterno. If that were to happen it would have the potential to destroy the entire world! The only possible hope? Actual Joepa!

GO STATE!

by GLORYOFOLDSTATE on May 2, 2008 12:33 PM EDT 0 recs

Numbers would be okay

But I really want a stripe on the pants. I don't think that's too much to ask.

by MarkoMancuso on May 2, 2008 2:20 PM EDT 0 recs

Uni's

White Helmets...Blue Jerseys...White Pants...Black Cleats....

seriously folks you can't get any better than that, I hate when uniforms become a bilboard for something other than what they represent

Our uniform is one (if not) the best in all of sports college and professional...

It is clean and direct just like PSU football should be, you know you get chills when you see that coming out of the tunnel...really could you imagine something else

Think of the uniforms like you think of JoePa, yeah some would like to see a change but you won't miss them until they are gone and I for one never want to see them change

by Lion Alum on May 2, 2008 3:10 PM EDT 0 recs

Pete Lisicky

I randomly ran into Pete Lisicky at a bar in Amsterdam back in 2001. Partied till the wee hours. Good times. If that last 7 years of his life have been anything like that night, that guy is living well.

by pamf on May 2, 2008 4:18 PM EDT 0 recs

Fear

I fear the day they change the football uniforms. And please get no more attempts of changing the psu logo.

Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

by wookieeman on May 2, 2008 4:33 PM EDT 0 recs

I like the uniforms

how they are, but if they come out with blue pants for one game a year, I think that would be really neat. The story about the recruit calling Joepa was one of the funnier stories I heard this week, but Joe's a busy guy, I don't blame him for sneaking in a nap. For all you Ron Zook fans, he pulled a Bobby Bowden and took away Rashard Mendenhall's brother's scholarship away for this year, and he is a fifth-year senior

by WPIALkid22 on May 2, 2008 7:55 PM EDT 0 recs

The Whites

I could pay a poet 1,000 a word to write a 1,000 words about why Penn State showing up at the 1994 Rose Bowl in the White uniforms with no bowl patch was, without a doubt, the coolest thing any football team ever did, but it wouldn't do it justice.

Every time I try to describe how cool the White uniforms are I just sound conceited and arrogant.

I guess I would say everything about our uniforms say f@#k you, but in a way there is nothing you can say about it. This is what got under Miami's skin in 1986, and every time we've played them since. Out uniforms, the Whites especially, are our fatigues.

In a way, Miami might know us best. They've always known how cocky we are. But while screaming it at the top of their lungs, they look nuts ,and we look good.

The essence of Penn State football is in the Whites. The Whites are the coolest uniform in all of sports.

For the Glory National Champions 1982, 1986, 1994,

by jesse. on May 2, 2008 8:19 PM EDT 0 recs